Welcome to the Shroomery Message Board! You are experiencing a small sample of what the site has to offer. Please login or register to post messages and view our exclusive members-only content. You'll gain access to additional forums, file attachments, board customizations, encrypted private messages, and much more!

DISCLAIMER: Some posters have become upset after reading this news. It deals with the death of a little girl and gives fairly detailed descriptions of her torture and death. Reader discretion is advised

Death by TheoryAttachment therapy is based on a pseudoscientific theory that, when put into practice, can be deadlyBy Michael Shermer

In April 2000, 10-year-old Candace Newmaker began treatment for attachment disorder. Her adoptive mother of four years, Jeane Newmaker, was having trouble handling what she considered to be Candace's disciplinary problems. She sought help from a therapist affiliated with the Association for Treatment and Training in the Attachment of Children (www.ATTACh.org) and was told that Candace needed attachment therapy (AT), based on the theory that if a normal attachment is not formed during the first two years, attachment can be done later.

According to the theory, the child must be subjected to physical "confrontation" and "restraint" to release repressed abandonment anger. The process is repeated until the child is exhausted and emotionally reduced to an "infantile" state. Then the parents cradle, rock and bottle-feed him, implementing an "attachment."

Candace was treated by Connell Watkins, a nationally prominent attachment therapist and past clinical director for the Attachment Center at Evergreen (ACE) in Colorado, and her associate Julie Ponder. The treatment was carried out in Watkins's home and videotaped. According to trial transcripts, Watkins and Ponder conducted more than four days of "holding therapies." On one day they grabbed or covered Candace's face 138 times, shook or bounced her head 392 times and shouted into her face 133 times. When these actions failed to break her, they put the 68-pound Candace inside a flannel sheet and covered her with sofa pillows, while several adults (with a combined weight of nearly 700 pounds) lay on top of her so that she could be "reborn." Ponder is reported to have told the girl to imagine that she was "a teeny little baby" in the womb, commanding her to "come out head first." In response, Candace screamed, "I can't breathe, I can't do it! ... Somebody's on top of me.... I want to die now! Please! Air!"

According to AT, Candace's reaction was a sign of her emotional resistance, calling for more confrontation to achieve emotional healing. ACE (now operating as the Institute for Attachment and Child Development) claims that "confrontation is sometimes necessary to break through a child's defenses and reach the hurting child within." Putting theory into practice, Ponder admonished, "You're gonna die." The girl begged: "Please, please, I can't breathe." She then vomited and cried, "I gotta poop." Ponder instructed the others to "press more on top," on the premise that such children exaggerate their distress. Her mother entreated, "I know it's hard, but I'm waiting for you."

After 40 minutes of struggling, Candace went silent. Ponder rebuked her: "Quitter, quitter!" Someone joked about performing a C-section, while Ponder patted a dog that meandered by. After 30 minutes of silence, Watkins remarked, "Let's look at this twerp and see what's going on. Is there a kid in there somewhere? There you are lying in your own vomit. Aren't you tired?"

Candace wasn't tired; she was dead. The death certificate listed the proximate cause as asphyxiation, and her therapists received the minimum sentence of 16 years for "reckless child abuse resulting in death." The ultimate cause was pseudoscientific quackery masquerading as psychological science. "However bizarre or idiosyncratic these treatments appear--and however ineffective or harmful they may be to children--they emerge from a complex internal logic based, unfortunately, on faulty premises," write Jean Mercer, a psychologist at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, and Larry Sarner and Linda Rosa of the National Council against Health Fraud in their 2003 analysis, Attachment Therapy on Trial: The Torture and Death of Candace Newmaker.

Other children have died after AT as well. The American Psychiatric Association states: "While some therapists have advocated the use of so-called coercive holding therapies and/or 're-birthing techniques,' there is no scientific evidence to support the effectiveness of such interventions." Nevertheless, AT continues to flourish. ATTACh claims to have about 600 members. The numbers may be even higher, Mercer, Sarner and Rosa say, because the practice goes by different labels, including holding-nurturing process, rage reduction, cuddle time and compression therapy (see www.ChildrenInTherapy.org).

By whatever name, AT remains a pseudoscience. We should ban its practice before it tortures and kills children again.

What you described bore no relation to any science. Science is based upon verifiable fact. "Therapy is NOT based on fact.

--------------------"A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda

you can't theoretically capture something as emotion - you may sense and even accurately determine how someone is going to feel but there is no healthy way to physically make the person cleanse themselves emotionally as if they are "reborn" this is total bullshit. my sincerities go to the the child and the other victims of this piece of theoretical manure that was probably manifested from some poor old therapist's sick little lethargically sought ideals on the emotional processes of children. hindering the development of a child can be so fatal...even without death.end this practice, i'll sign the petition.

THAT WAS HORRIBLE!!! I understand attachment theory from several important theorists like Mahler, Bowlby, Horney, Erikson, Masterson, etc. and it is understood that developmental stages cannot be revisited. Every human has a series of critical developmental stages, regardless of the theorist. If we are not successful, then it is too late and we go through life with varying degrees of psychopathology like Borderline Personality Disorder or Narcissistic Personality organization (or Disorder) which makes healthy attachment, intimacy and loving impossible. These things can be adjusted outwardly, making individuals appear fine, but it is just an act (I was married to a Borderline for many years). THAT was some sadistic s**t! Poor child.

I used to be very disattached from my surroundings as a result from child abuse. what were the parents thinking? i child like that needs love and compassion, not words to tear open more wounds.

this is science?

--------------------Annnnnnd I had a light saber and my friend was there and I said "you look like an indian" and he said "you look like satan" and he found a stick and a rock and he named the rock ooga booga and he named the stick Stick and we both thought that was pretty funny. We got eaten alive by mosquitos but didn't notice til the next day. I stepped on some glass while wading in the swamp and cut my foot open, didn't bother me til the next day either....yeah it was a good time, ended the night by buying some liquor for minors and drinking nips and going to he diner and eating chicken fingers, and then I went home and went to bed.---senior doobie

Validity of the theory aside, who the fuck would think it's a good idea to let a bunch of adults smother their kid with a sheet and lay on top of her?! Whatever purpose it's supposed to serve, that's just asking for a tragic accident. Damn, people are fucking stupid...or crazy...or something. Hell if I know after reading something like that.

Reading that really stoned last night nearly made me sick.. it was WAY too graphic.

Edit: I think you should consider removing this post, Trendal. Or atleast add a disclaimer to the title. It was a LOT more than I thought I was signing on for when I started reading the thread. A detailed account of the procedure by which they tortured and killed this child is NOT necessary.. and at the very least, one should have warning that they're about to encounter such a thing.

Quote:Renegade420 said:Validity of the theory aside, who the fuck would think it's a good idea to let a bunch of adults smother their kid with a sheet and lay on top of her?!

This is exactly my point! It seems that all you need to do is label something, anything as "science". Toss in some techno-babble to confuse anyone who doesn't spend 24/7 reading science...and you will find a LOT of people who will buy into your "science" without any second-guess. It looks like this little girl's mother fell victim to this horrid type of scam.

Like my sig below says, our society promotes scientific illiteracy, which in turn promotes the use of science in scams.

--------------------

Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free.
But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.